


All the Time in the World

by bananaquit



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananaquit/pseuds/bananaquit
Summary: Charlie Dalton got whatever he wanted. Except Neil.





	All the Time in the World

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel of sorts to "put me on a pedestal and i'll only disappoint you". The lovely @fivecenturiesofflanel on tumblr gave me the prompt.

You didn’t just fall out of love with Neil Perry, Charlie learned very quickly. He guessed he’d thought the feelings would just go away after they went back to being just friends, but they didn’t. Neil had made it very clear that anything they’d shared beyond friendship was over, but still they stayed.

They stayed even when Todd came into their lives, lingering behind darkened brown eyes and cigarette embers as Charlie gave his signature smirk and congratulated Neil on his newfound relationship. Todd and Neil were perfect for each other in the most disgustingly cliche sort of way. Charlie wasn’t resentful, no, it was just that part of him believed that he and Neil would still have a happy ending someday. He didn’t really stop to think about the fact it was unrealistic. He was Charlie Dalton. He got whatever he wanted. 

After all, he had all the time in the world. Since the day Neil had told him he didn’t want to be with him anymore, he’d been working. He’d been slowly improving himself day by day, becoming the person Neil wanted, a person Neil could love. At least that was what he told himself. In reality, he didn’t do anything different, didn’t make any effort to be a better person or less of a jerk. He’d convinced himself it would all work out in time, that the future he wanted would be handed to him on a silver platter. Nothing changed. He was still the same person he was. He didn’t even try.

When Neil got that part in the play, all he could feel was Neil’s contagious happiness, clouding his head and painting pictures of the future they could have. He imagined what it would like when they were back together again, when Charlie would be a rich banker and Neil would be an actor and they would live together in some unnecessarily extravagant house with more room than either of them needed. Neil would dance across a stage far bigger than Henley Hall’s, all eyes and lights on him where they should be. When they were out of this hellhole, Charlie would prove he’d changed. He’d tell Neil how he felt and they’d start over again. 

And he believed it. He believed it right up until the chance for the future he’d pictured was gone forever. Neil never got to know how he felt and he never would. The hope he’d held on to was undeniably lost, the picturesque dream shattered at his feet. Charlie laid on his stupidly soft bed on his stupidly expensive sheets in his stupidly expensive house where he lived with his stupidly rich parents after being expelled from that stupidly prestigious school. The facts were cold and hard like Neil’s body. It wasn’t fair that Neil got to feel so numb when all Charlie could feel was the burning pain of his hot tears streaking scalding lines down his cheeks. 


End file.
